


Benedict (How Do You Take Your Eggs?)

by waldorph



Series: 2012-2013 Winter Anthology [5]
Category: The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Blanket Permission, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-14
Updated: 2013-01-14
Packaged: 2017-11-25 10:37:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,355
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/638010
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/waldorph/pseuds/waldorph
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"It's the most important meal of the day," he says.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Benedict (How Do You Take Your Eggs?)

**Author's Note:**

> for merisunshine36, who prompted me with: "Avengers (Steve/Natasha) "breakfast""

**1\. That Diner Down in Brooklyn**  
She doesn't expect to like him. She wasn't sure she'd have an opinion at all, but if she did, she didn't think it would be particularly favorable. He was an artifact, and she'd had enough of those in her life. People who aren't on top of their game tend to need to be dragged along, and she's not up to being anyone's shepherd into the 21st century.

But he was a good leader, and she'd never been particularly interested in being a free agent. She liked to work within a system, to have someone else to--well. Her moral code isn't 100%, she knows that. She knows that she does the best she can, but she's also smart enough to know she needs other people to reference. 

Rogers is a good man. He's not squeaky clean, not the way that Stark thinks he is, and he doesn't have to try as hard as Banner. He's good, not an archetype. Not a saint. A man. 

"I danced in front of chorus girls." 

"I buried eight husbands."

Some days they eat breakfast together. On slower days when there's no assignment, when Stark is driving Rogers insane, they tuck themselves into a back booth and compare stories. 

"There was a whore house," Rogers says, "and the guys are, you know, letting loose."

"As you do," she agrees, wondering what Stark would do if he could hear Captain America talking so easily of whore houses. 

"And VDs are a big deal, we lost more men to them than most anything else."

"Sure."

"So I banged on all the doors with condoms and chucked 'em at them."

She laughs, putting her head down on the formica table-top, because of course he did. He absolutely would, and would blink his big blue eyes and look completely baffled and they wouldn't have been able to call him on shit. 

He does it with SHIELD, too. Widens his eyes and parts his lips and looks baffled and uncomfortable and even Fury loses his speed.

And Stark scoffs and rolls his eyes and Banner uses his gentle talking-to-children voice and Clint...fucks off a lot, but Natasha finds herself laughing a lot.

* * *

**2\. In One of Her Apartments**  
There's a fucking Wheaties commercial playing. She tilts her head. She didn't even know that they still made those: for years she'd thought it was something fake--a pop culture reference Americans used.

"Did wheaties even exist then?" she asks, blinking blearily into her coffee. He probably should have been on a Wheaties box. 

"I did a commercial for them," Rogers says. "I'm not really sure how that worked, but it was something about the Senator from South Dakota's brother being on the--"

"I already lost interest," she admits, and he laughs.

"Yes," he says. "They existed. They were pretty terrible then, too." 

She doesn't even ask why he's in her apartment. She figures his way of avoiding Stark is the his business.

* * *

**3\. Stark Tower Common Kitchen**  
"So...that man..."

"Athletic, but probably not your type," she grunts. They've been on lock-down for a month, unable to get back to their own houses, and she needed to let of steam after being trapped in Stark's space for so long. She's threatened to short-out JARVIS at least eleven times. She thinks Coulson is about a day away from actually doing it. "God, where's the coffee?"

He hands her a cup, shoulders shaking as he laughs at her. "And, his sister?"

"Bossy as shit," she says into her cup. He shakes his head and scrambles them eggs.

* * *

**4\. SHIELD Briefing, 0630**  
"--is a strategic threat to our base of operations in the area," Fury is saying. Natasha tries to think of all the contacts she has in the area, and Clint is already lazily scribbling names on his legal pad. 

"Raspberry jelly filled or lemon jelly filled?" Rogers asks her, holding out two powdered doughnuts as he reclaims his seat. There's a breakfast bar behind them, and she didn't even notice it. 

She takes the lemon and kindly ignores the way everyone else stares as he scoops jelly out with his fingers and sucks it off.

* * *

**5\. On Stake-Out**  
"You're eating those without milk."

She looks down at the strawberry-flavored Frosted Mini-Wheats in her hand, then at him. "Yep."

She likes them: they're filling and delicious.

"That's disgusting." 

She holds out the box.

He takes a handful and ignores her smirk when he reaches in for seconds.

* * *

**6\. Somewhere In Maine**  
She's bloody, and she's tired, and she wants to go to bed. She can't see out of her left eye, and she's ignoring her left foot because if she pays attention to it she's not going to be able to keep walking. 

"Jesus," Steve breathes, and scoops her up. It only occurs to him after he's going a few paces that this might be a bad idea--she can feel it in the way he tenses uncomfortably. 

She'd be pissed, but he's carried Banner post-Hulk and he's carried Tony a couple of times, and she's just grateful she's not getting the fireman-carry. 

"What time is it?" she asks. 

"Uh, 0730 local time," he says, twisting his wrist to glance at his watch. She can feel all of his muscles shifting against her skin, and it's nice. Distracting.

"We're gonna miss breakfast," she says, and then presses her lips together on a cough. "While we're on the subject, I hate that super-serum."

The super-serum means he heals fast, if he bruises at all. So the explosion that tried to rip her to pieces just makes him walk slower. 

Fucking superheroes. 

He hands her a breakfast bar, and she probably tears something laughing so hard.

* * *

**7\. Boston General**  
Hospital breakfast is terrible. No matter what you order, they don't get it to you fast enough that the eggs haven't gone sweaty and squeaky, and the condensation ruins pancakes, and the toast is either soggy or stiff. 

She's not a fan, so she usually gets a bagel and hopes it's not terrible.

"Hospital breakfasts are still terrible," Steve says, and he has a bag in one hand and two cups of coffee, and he sits down in the chair by her bed and hands her a muffin. It's chocolate and raspberry and still warm, and the coffee isn't coffee, it's green tea. 

"You're in the hospital," he says. "No coffee." 

"You're an asshole," she tells him, and he laughs and slurps his coffee obnoxiously.

* * *

**8\. That Diner in Brooklyn, Again**  
It takes a whole week. Seven breakfasts before he realizes that they're dates, and then he flushes a little and smiles and steals the bacon off of her plate. 

That Saturday they go dancing, and that Sunday they have breakfast in bed.

* * *

**9\. Steve Roger's Bed**  
She doesn't think he'd agree (because he's annoying about needing to get regular meals in the way people are when they grew up hungry), but she thinks that probably with the super-serum, his jizz is big on protein. Totally counts as breakfast. 

On the other hand...

"We should eat."

"You could eat me," she suggests, and laughs when he flips her onto her back and settles between her thighs.

* * *

**10\. Some Shitty Americana Diner in the Middle of the Country After They Saved the Country Again**  
"So!" Banner says, beaming around at all of them. "This is nice."

"Yay team," Stark agrees, slouching. Clint rolls his eyes, and Thor is missing, but it's good, probably. Team spirit. 

The waitress comes over and takes their orders. Stark orders everything, but he's only going to drink the coffee. Banner gets an egg-white omelet with spinach and green tea. Clint gets a stack of silver dollars. She eats eggs benedict. Steve gets a bowl of wheaties. Around them, everyone sighs and makes noises, but he catches her eye and his lips twitch a little. 

It's sort of funny that the guy who wears the ostentatious suit and who actually does buy the whole American Ideal thing is also the guy who uses that. 

She hands him a piece of bacon.

**Author's Note:**

>  **Blanket Permission:** go ahead and translate, make podfic, rework the fic, or do whatever other transformative work you can think of. If the work is hosted on another site, drop me a comment or email and I'll put a link in the story notes!
> 
> [twitter:](https://twitter.com/waldorph) for unfiltered me || [tumblr:](http://waldorph.tumblr.com/) less about me, more about the pretty gifsets and art


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